by BETH KERY
“Human beings, animals . . . anything that isn’t humming the way it should. Anything broken won’t let me rest. If something is out of rhythm, I hear it. Feel it. It puts me out of joint, too.”
“That’s fascinating,” she said softly. Strange that such a rugged, bold man could feel the delicacies of the universe so acutely.
“Why didn’t you finish your residency after graduating?” Lin wondered as the bartender put place settings, Lin’s salad, and Kam’s milk shake in front of them.
“My mother got ill.”
“She lived at Aurore Manor, didn’t she?” Lin asked.
He nodded. “She worked there. She grew up in an orphanage in Dublin. After she signed up for a maid employment service, she was transferred to Aurore from Ireland. I think she considered herself a temporary Irish visitor until the day she died, even though she lived in northern France for twenty-seven years of her life. She never really mastered the French language, even after all that time,” he explained with a small smile.
She watched as he lifted the long silver spoon from his shake and ladled some of the thick, white liquid between his lips. He slipped it out. The frost on the chilled spoon vanished in a second by the heat of his mouth. She blinked, mesmerized by the sight. “My father seduced her when she was nineteen,” Kam continued bluntly, “got her pregnant with me, and probably never said a dozen words to her between then and the time he died.”
Lin took a sip of water. He’d sounded brutally honest about his father’s crimes. What a strange, lonely existence Kam Reardon must have lived growing up on the grounds of his twisted father’s home.
“But Trevor Gaines spoke to you,” she said softly after a moment, studying his profile. “He taught you what he knew about machines and computers and watches.”
“Yeah. He spoke to me. He allowed me to live on the estate and eat his food and work my ass off for him. When I was eight, I begged him to send me to the public school in the village. He permitted it because he thought the basic knowledge of mathematics might make me a better assistant in his laboratory, and he didn’t have the interest in teaching me myself. When I got older, I bargained with the knowledge of how to improve a couple of his inventions. He sent me to college in exchange for the information, and then resented me ever after for surpassing his mechanical abilities. I guess all that makes him Father of the Year,” Kam said with a dark sideways glance.
She inhaled slowly, trying to dissipate the ache in her chest. “I’m sorry, Kam. Was . . . it better getting that grudging attention from him? Or would you have rather been like Lucien and Ian?”
“Lucien and Ian were better off shot of him altogether. Best thing Gaines ever did for them, ignoring them the way he did,” Kam muttered viciously. He inhaled when he noticed her startled expression.
Not wanting to say something when words would never suffice or make him think she couldn’t handle what he’d said, she picked up her fork and mixed her dressing onto her salad. Neither of them spoke for a charged moment.
“Living in the vicinity of Trevor Gaines was like living near a perpetually broken machine,” he said in a subdued tone after a pause, staring straight ahead. “It almost drove me mad to be near him, like living with a relentless clunk and bang, a grinding on my bones, just from his damn presence. At one point, he requested that I live up at the manor with him. My mother insisted I go—she lived in some kind of dreamworld when it came to him and me—so I went. He had me dressed up like Little Lord Fauntleroy and tried to teach me to be a gentleman,” Kam recalled with simmering sarcasm. “But I knew who he really was. What he really was. Who better than me, after what he’d done to my mother? Filthy fucking hypocrite,” he seethed under his breath. “I finally lost it and told him what he could do with his social graces. No,” he concluded darkly. “Ian and Lucien were lucky to never have laid eyes on the bastard.”
Lin didn’t flinch at his sudden flash of savageness. His snarl faded slowly as he seemed to come to himself. They both watched in silence as the bartender set the remainder of Kam’s meal in front of him.
“Sorry,” he said dully after the bartender left.
“You don’t have to apologize. There’s nothing shocking about your anger toward him. It’s very understandable.”
“Are you worried about tonight?” he asked warily after several silent moments of eating.
She glanced aside, surprised. “No. Are you worried?”
He swallowed and shook his head.
“Just be yourself, Kam,” she said quietly.
“I thought that was what you were trying to help me avoid,” he said before he took a swift bite of fork-tender ribs.
“You’re wrong. I wouldn’t want you to be anything but yourself.” She searched for a way to ease his anxiety, grabbing on a thread of advice. “Just talk to people like you do me,” she suggested.
A strange expression came over his rugged features. He set down his fork and knife and took a swallow of ice water.
“What?” Lin asked warily.
He leaned closer until their mouths were only inches apart.
“We’re screwed,” he said, his warm breath brushing her lips.
“What do you mean?”
“I hardly talk to people as a rule. At least not for the past few years.”
“And?” she whispered cautiously, caught in the gleam of his shadowed eyes.
“I’ve said more words to you in the past twenty-four hours than I have to people I’ve known my whole life. I don’t have to think about talking to you. It just . . . happens.”
“Oh,” she said, flustered. She stared at the fork in her hand, wondering how it had gotten there. What was it even used for? She set it down abruptly, grasping for the thread of rational thought.
“Well then . . . just listen,” she suggested breathlessly. She looked up into his somber face. “Listen to the Gersbachs like you do the rest of the world, absorb their intentions, feel their rhythms. Don’t feel any pressure to perform. That’s not what this is about. Observe them tonight, and afterward, you can tell me all your impressions. You’ll put it into words then.”
“So I get you afterward? To myself?”
Her pulse began to throb at her throat as she stared at his mouth. She hadn’t prepared for him saying that. She was wide-open to him. His gaze was fixed on her throat. She instinctively pressed her hand to her neck, but he stopped her by wrapping his hand around her wrist. Her breath froze and then burned in her lungs as she watched him slowly raise her hand to his mouth and place a single kiss on her palm. It was a simple gesture, and yet mind-bogglingly complex. Her sex clenched tight at the sensation of his pressing, firm lips and the hint of his heat behind them.
“I’ll think about it,” she whispered shakily when their gazes met again.
The hint of a smile pulled at his lips. She couldn’t make a logical decision with his knowing eyes seeing straight through her and his kiss still burning her palm. She had the uncomfortable impression that while she was unsure of how tonight would end, Kam was one hundred percent positive.
Chapter Five
Lin ended up having a wonderful time at lunch, finally letting Kam talk her into sampling his ribs and pizza. He’d been right. The food was delicious. They’d lingered over it until Lin regretfully said she needed to get back to work. Since he’d expressed interest in touring other businesses, she made a phone call on the cab ride downtown and got Kam in for a tour and executive meeting with both Schnell Industries, a young and promising technology company; and Alltell, a major wireless telecommunications company.
“Are you interested in acquiring wireless technology that could make your watch into an organizer and communications device?” she asked him while they were in the cab.
“Thinking about it,” Kam said vaguely.
“Because that’s a fantastic idea,” she enthused. She sat back in the seat,
and was considering all the innovative possibilities for Kam’s watch, when she noticed him eyeing her closely.
“You must be very excited, having a groundbreaking product like this. I could really get behind your watch, Kam,” she said sincerely.
“Could you?” he asked. Lin blinked when she sensed the intensity behind his quiet question.
She finished with work early and returned to her condominium, where she decided to practice a new dance routine that had proved challenging for her. Traditional Chinese dance emphasized exquisite control of movement. It was a sort of moving meditation for her, an exercise that helped her find her center, her peace . . . her control.
Something told her that her control would be in short measure tonight.
She ignored the volatile thought and for a while was able to lose herself in the fluid rhythm of the dance. Afterward, she showered and retrieved two potential dresses for dinner from her closet. As she came out of her walk-in closet, she heard her doorbell ring. She draped the dresses over her arm and hurriedly tightened her robe. After checking who it was through the peephole, she swung open the door.
“Hi,” she greeted Richard St. Claire, smiling. “What are you doing home at this hour?” she asked, knowing he was usually working at the restaurant at this time.
“I’m coming down with something. Emile told me to get home and to bed before I spread things to the customers,” Richard croaked, pointing to his chest. “Can I borrow your humidifier? My chest is killing me every time I cough.”
“You sound like you’re about to get laryngitis, too,” she said, alarmed. “Have you been to the doctor?”
He shook his head. “I don’t have a fever. I just need some rest.”
“Follow me,” she said, bustling back to her bedroom. She tossed the two dresses on the foot of the bed and entered her bathroom. When she came out a moment later carrying her humidifier, Richard was looking at the dresses. “Going out tonight?” he asked.
“Yes. To Frais,” Lin said, handing him the humidifier.
“Traitor.”
“Elise and Lucien are practically family, just like you and Emile are,” she chastised him fondly. “Besides, Otto Gersbach is a health nut. Doesn’t touch alcohol, and just between you and me, would prefer to dine at restaurants that don’t serve it when his daughter is with him.
“Ah,” Richard said, nodding in understanding. He knew that Elise’s restaurant catered to individuals with a history of substance abuse and their friends and family, taking away the element of alcohol, yet still providing everything else an epicure might desire in a luxury dining experience. “The things you learn about Noble’s business associates would stun the man on the street, Lin. Speaking of which, how did things go on Monday night?” Richard asked. He gave her a give-me-a-break glance when she feigned confusion. “With the sexy Brazilian street fighter?”
She picked up the dresses. “Very well, I think. It was just work, you know . . . Ian’s brother,” she reminded him when she noticed his amused expression. “I have a business dinner again tonight with him, in fact.”
“Uh-huh,” Richard murmured doubtfully.
She shot him a cool glance. On the inside, however, her heart began to throb in her chest. She had tried not to be conspicuous in leaving Savaur the other night with Kam, but Richard didn’t miss much. He might have noticed they got in a cab together. Still, that didn’t mean anything necessarily. They might have been sharing a cab.
“He really does look an awful lot like Ian,” Richard said too casually.
“Yes, he does,” she admitted, going to a mirror over her dresser and holding up one dress and then the other. “Although he couldn’t be more different.”
“So being around him isn’t . . . difficult for you?”
She knew what Richard was hinting at, but she didn’t want to discuss it. Richard and Emile were both smart, observant men. She’d never admitted point-blank to either one of them that she had a “thing” for her boss, but they suspected. She ritualistically refused to talk about it with either of them, so why would things be different tonight?
“No,” she replied. “Kam is a unique, shall we say challenging personality, but nothing I can’t handle.”
“You’re certain?”
“Absolutely,” she replied, meeting his eyes calmly in the mirror.
Richard studied her face soberly for a second before he shrugged. “You’re a locked chamber when it comes to some things, Lin.”
“I have no reason to lock anything away. Not on this topic,” she lied.
“So socializing with a man who looks so much like Ian Noble is a simple, easy thing for you, eh?”
As easy as sin.
She suppressed the automatic thought and held up the two dresses. “Which one?” she asked.
“Is this some kind of riddle for me to answer my own question?”
She gave him an exasperated glance, and he laughed. Richard considered the two dresses with the air of an expert. He said the name of the designer of the black-and-white dress, as if the choice was obvious. It was a tuxedolike halter cocktail dress with a high neck that left her arms, upper back and shoulders bare. A curved cutout in the front also left a good portion of her legs exposed. It was a structured, geometric design, but the dress was also fiercely sexy.
“Don’t you think it’s too . . . much?” she asked doubtfully, examining the dress critically.
“You tell me which one,” was Richard’s arch reply.
She held up the decidedly more demure dress with frothy skirt and a high waist and collar.
“Interesting,” Richard mused as he started to leave, carrying the humidifier.
“Be sure to drink lots of liquids. I’ll check in on you later. And the dress is not interesting,” she couldn’t stop herself from calling after him. “It’s a perfectly uninteresting dress.”
“That was what was interesting about you picking it,” he said before he walked out the door.
• • •
Francesca immediately greeted her when she walked into the small ballroom. Lucien’s staff had converted it into a studio to display her artwork.
“Hi! You’re one of the first to get here. Or maybe you’re one of the only to come,” Francesca added worriedly under her breath, before she gave Lin a hug and a kiss on the cheek and Lin reciprocated.
“Don’t be silly. Loads of people will come. You got that wonderful mention in the Chicago Tribune last Sunday in the arts section. I just came early to be sure I was here before everyone else. You look beautiful,” Lin said. The vibrant green color did wonderful things for Ian’s wife’s rose-gold hair and dark eyes. The cut of the dress subtly emphasized Francesca’s pregnant state rather than disguising it. Francesca was in the fifth month of her pregnancy, and she looked radiant. Strangely enough, considering Lin’s secret feelings for Ian, she’d never been painfully jealous of Francesca. Perhaps that was simply because the vibrant, fresh, and singularly talented young woman was difficult not to like. Lin’s feelings toward Francesca Noble had deepened from cautious amiability to respect and caring. She understood why Ian was so captivated by his wife. Besides, how could she profess to genuine feelings for Ian and not be glad for his obvious peace and happiness?
“Thanks,” Francesca said earnestly. “I haven’t had a showing in almost a year. I’m very nervous.”
“I’m excited to see your work. I’m sure it’ll be amazing,” Lin said, glancing around the mostly empty ballroom. Some of Francesca’s framed sketches had been mounted on the walls, but some were displayed on erected panels throughout the room.
“I hope so. I’m a little nervous about the different medium. Let’s go and check your wrap,” she suggested, waving toward the far corner of the room.
“Wow. What a dress,” Francesca said a few seconds later when Lin removed her wrap. “You always manage to look like you j
ust walked off the runway, but this . . . very sexy,” Francesca praised with a grin.
Feeling uncommonly self-conscious, Lin handed her wrap to the smiling coat check girl. What had made her choose the halter tuxedo dress, after all? Her back, shoulders, and arms suddenly felt overexposed, the bare skin prickly and sensitive.
“I can’t wait until I can wear a dress like that again,” Francesca said touching the slight bulge of her stomach.
“You could wear it now,” Lin said, meaning it. “You’ve hardly gained a pound beyond the baby’s weight.”
“Yeah. Like I could pull off that number,” Francesca said, looking at Lin’s dress and laughing. A spark of sudden interest flew into her eyes and she took a step toward Lin. “We have to talk about what you think of Kam. Ian hinted that things must have become . . . interesting when you two met the other night.”
An alarm began ringing in Lin’s brain. “Interesting? What did Ian mean by that?”
Francesca opened her mouth to reply, looked over Lin’s shoulder and checked herself. “Hi,” she called in greeting. “Here’s Lin. She looks amazing, doesn’t she?”
The prickling of awareness on her bare shoulders and back amplified. She turned around. Lucien and Kam stood just behind her, their heights similar, two formidable, extremely handsome men. Kam’s stare dropped fleetingly over her. She couldn’t quite interpret his rigid expression, but his eyes were like gleaming quicksilver in the mask of his face.
“They delivered the suit all right?” she asked him. He just nodded once, his stare on her unflinching.
Hungry?
“It . . . it looks great,” she stammered. It was a monumental understatement. Kam was devastating in the well-cut black suit with crisp white dress shirt and royal blue tie.
“How did the tour at Schnell go this afternoon?” she asked.
“Good. Jim was great,” he said, referring to the vice president who had met with Kam as a favor to Lin. “Thank you again for setting it up for me.”